iPhone (Illustration)
Photo: AFP
Israel's Any.DO to launch Android app for iPhone
Any.DO CEO Omer Perchik aspires for more than 1 million Android users as he prepares to launch iPhone version of mobile voice-driven application
Any.DO, an application developed by an Israeli
startup company, has made it into PC Magazine's top ten must have Android apps alongside Amazon's Kindle, Dropbox and Google Voice.
Earlier this year, Any.DO was hailed as one of the top ten Android apps by the New York Times, only days after it was praised on the Best Android Apps list published by the prestigious Tech Crunch.
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In the six months since its launch, the application not only won accolades but it had also gained a one-million user market. Any.DO is currently showcasing its application at the MWC trade show in Barcelona alongside Netflix, Foursquare and one other Israeli startup represented in the Android stand.
Any.DO is a task management voice-driven application which translates voice input into written tasks that users may keep in files, add tasks or reminders or clear them by shaking their phones. Users can also create shared tasks with other users and synchronize tasks with Google Tasks. Additionally, users can turn unanswered calls into reminders.
Any.DO was founded by Omer Perchik, Yoni Lindenfeld and Itay Kahana, who all served in the IDF's top technology units. The company held its first financing round at the end of 2010.
The company chanced upon its first investor when Perchik met Genesis Fund's Eden Shohat at the GeeCON show. Later, Gogobot founder Ori Zaltzman introduced Perchik to Innovation Endeavors, Google chairman Eric Schmidt's investment fund led by Dror Berman.
Task management is only the first step for Any.DO. "I can't say much about our long term vision, because we're not on a product level yet," says Perchik. "Right now, we're only 5% into the bigger product which we're working on at the moment".
Not just for Android
Perchik is not limiting Any.DO to the Android market; the company is getting ready to launch the iPhone version. "We chose to go with Android because it has a fast growth rate, more flexible policies than Apple and it allows for convenient application development", he explains.
Perchik's philosophy is that the mobile phone will become the user's friend of sorts.
"It's like a third hand or a third brain. Our mobile phone will be like someone you can count on, like a friend or even more. Our mobile will act as sort of a filter for personalized content. Additionally, each smartphone will have a sensor –for your house, your car, anywhere you go. I can see this manifesting right before my eyes with applications like My6Sense , Google Currents and Siri on iPhone.
"At first, we thought Google wouldn’t be into an artificial intelligence interface, until last December when they acquired 'Alfred' – a voice controlled virtual personal assistant which offers recommendations on various topics. I'm sure Google will not remain without a response to Siri".
Perchik regards the company’s ties with Google as beneficial. "Their engineers are very helpful and Google Israel's team is doing a good job in coordinating efforts on both ends. But we don’t only work with Google, we're also connected to Facebook and I believe that our cooperation with them will become closer in the future".
